Sword Swallowing is a technique that when seen often leaves its viewers in a momentary state of shock and awe. The audience simply cannot believe what they are viewing, after all, who in their right mind would stick sharp and dangerous objects directly into

(Here is a sword swallower swallowing several swords at once)

their body? After watching a sword swallower perform, I am sure that many of you like me wondered, "just how in the world do they do that?" Well, luckily for you I am about to tell you right now! Sword Swallowing, like many other techniques has a specific science to it that sword swallowers must master before they can successfully swallow swords. You can not just simply stick a sword down your throat in order to learn. Sword Swallowing is a technique that requires quite a bit of training and time to perfect.

In order to learn sword swallowing, one must first completely desensitize one's gag reflex.To do this, one must vigorously  practice sticking objects down  one's throat in order to suppress the gag reflex. Usually, beginners start with sticking their fingers down their throats and they gradually begin to move on to other, larger objects such as spoons, paint brushes, and even knitting needles! Once they can down all that, they can move onto swallowing a bent coat wire before downing stainless steel swords.

Besides suppressing their gag reflexes, sword swallowers must also how to perfectly align a sword with their upper esophageal sphincter, a muscular ring at the upper end of the esophagus, and they must also learn how to relax muscles in their esophagus and their pharynx. The problem with relaxing muscles in the pharynx and the esophagus is that these muscles are usually not under voluntary control.

Sword Swallowers also use saliva to  ease  the swords that they use down their throats by first lubricating the blade with saliva and then sending it down the hatch.

Hey, this is Kenyatta, another member of TalkingScience! I am broadcasting this message under Katrina's blog because, well, I do not have my own yet. Recently, TalkingScience hosted a Science Cabaret and let me tell you; it was a blast! It had all the elements needed to have fun with the family, and to also learn some new and interesting things. Forget your boring old physics class; This Cabaret was a mixture of Bill Nye [The Science Guy] meets the Spicy New Generation!

The Cabaret took place at the World renowned Coney Island Aquarium in Brooklyn, New York and featured many interesting acts. From Nitrogen ice cream to a bed of nails, there was never a dull moment.

My absolute favorite part of the Cabaret had to be The Sword Swallowing. Coney Island's own Heather Holliday [real name Heather Ramon] is a professional sword swallower. Born and raised in Salt  Lake City, Utah, this woman right here has no fear of the big city, especially with her Big talent.

(This is Heather Holliday, sword swallowing extraodinaire!)

Upon researching sword swallowing to prepare for the event, I was a bit skeptical. Youtube and Imeem videos had shown me videos of people swallowing 18 inch or more swords, but I was not convinced. Through the computer screen, there may have been some light trick or something of the sort to prove that these people were faking it. Well, do I tell you I was wrong.

The day had come, and our sword swallower was going to be one of our final acts. I still hadn't seen her yet, but I had a description of her in my mind. I pictured, a medium build woman, with short dark hair with no sense of humor. After all, If I were swallowing something that can cut a person in half, I wouldn't be smiling. As I waited on the side of the stage, I heard her being announced and I waited:

"Hailing right from the Coney Island Boardwalk, here is Heather Holiday!"

The Crowd cheered, the loudest I had heard all night, and I was ready to be convinced. A tiny figure skipped right in front of me onto the stage. My eyes widened in disbelief. This, this....girl who looked no bigger than me, with streaked blond and black hair, was going to swallow a sword? No. It couldn't be. The real Heather was waiting out back, this was a joke. A Joke.

The tiny one carried with her a case. A case that looked as though it would house a trombone. But as she opened it, there were swords of all different shapes and sizes inside of it. "Still a joke?" I pondered. But it was not. Heather in an instant downed an 18 inch sword like it was nothing, and then licked her lips afterward as if it were dessert. My eyes widened in amazement as the 5'3", 110lbs woman swallowed a sword with effortless ease. But the night was still young.

Heather proceeded to down swords left and right, and even at a point down two at a time. I stood behind her and watched, looking for a light trick or maybe even a valve on the side of her neck, but there was nothing. Nothing to prove that it was a trick. The highlight of her act, as if she knew that I personally didn't believe, was when she asked for an assistant to pull out the sword from her body.

She chose a gangly man from the back row who looked like quite happy to get the opportunity to pull a 24" word out of a person's mouth. How often does one get that opportunity? She devoured the sword, telling us before hand that it would hit the tip of her stomach as she did this, and that she was putting her life at risk for our entertainment. She bent down on front of the man and urged him to pull the sword out of her ever so gently. Gingerly, he grasped the sword, with beads of sweat forming on his brow, and pulled slowly, not trying to harm her. I watched as the man pulled the sword out of her, and stared in amazement. It was no trick. It was all real. I was proven wrong by a 22 yr old woman from Utah.

This was just my personal take on the event. It was quite interesting as a whole, and one of the funniest Friday nights I had in a long, long time. So the next time you want to learn something and have a good time, head over to TalkingScience.org and find out when the next Science Cabaret will be near you.

When people hear the words tap water, the first words that come to mind are usually, "dirty," sink," "pipes," and, "nasty." Perhaps this is the reason that bottled water is consumed largely around the entire country.

After all, who wants to drink water that comes for a pipe that we use to wash ourselves and our dishes? For those of you who may be uniformed, tap water is running water that comes from indoor plumbing. We use tap water to wash our dishes, our clothes, our hands, and even our whole bodies! Well, contrary to popular belief, drinking water from the tap is not dirty. Tap water is actually very clean and sanitary, it goes through many water purification systems before we even get the chance to turn the sink's handle and let the water come gushing out of the faucet.

So, why is there such a negative stigma attached to drinking tap water? I believe that most of it comes from hearsay and paranoia. People think that if it comes from a faucet then it is automatically less clean than the water that they can buy in a fountain. Also, since tap water comes through pipes, people assume that there could be some sort of contamination of the water before it reaches the faucet even though there are many steps that are taken in order to prevent this from happening. New York City has some of the cleanest tap water in the world, but it is not utilized because people would rather spend money on bottled water.

So, why does everyone drink bottled water? Well, it's supposedly cleaner than the tap and tastes better too. It also comes in convenient plastic bottles that people can carry with them anywhere – the work, while excising, at home….the list just goes on and on! Well, you know those convenient little plastic bottles, while they may be quite helpful to you and anyone else using them, they are not quite so useful to the environment. In fact, all the plastic bottles that we are using are causing harm to the environment because it takes extremely long for them to finally degrade into the Earth.

In fact, there are many instances where the plastic bottles or plastics in general cannot degrade at all; these plastics will never degrade. However, there are certain instances where plastics can degrade, but it is only when certain conditions are met – such as extreme heat. However, even when these conditions are met, these plastics may not degrade for 1000 years. You can leave plastic to degrade for 50 years, and only the color would be gone, this says a lot about how long it would take for actual plastic to degrade.

Even with all of these problems, people still choose to buy bottled water. Perhaps it is because they don't realize what they're doing is having such a huge impact on the environment? After all, it's only them that are buying the water bottles. In reality, with everyone buying water bottles and thinking that what they're doing is not doing a lot, the impact actually becomes much, much greater

The bottom line is that we need to change the negative attitudes about tap water so that we can get more people drinking it. If everyone began drinking tap water than a large supply of harmful plastic would stop being produced and the Earth would greatly benefit. Remember to drink tap water, just by doing that you will doing your part to save the environment.

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When people think about animal sex, they generally think about the type of mating habits that we've all seen on the Discovery Channel. With animals, we think that the sex is all about procreation and there is nothing more into that simply that.

Well, the exhibit, The Sex Lives of Animals that is hosted in Manhattan's Museum of Sex attempts to get it out of mind that animals only have sex to procreate and that it actually may be a lot more about pleasure than we may think.

From Sexual cannibalism to actual Necrophilia in the animal kingdom, this exhibit will enlighten you to all of the different types of sex that animals practice. I was pleasantly surprised at how informative the exhibit was because I simply expected only sculptures of animals romping for some reason. However, the exhibit provides a few life like sculptures to further illustrate the information that is written on the walls of the exhibit. One such sculpture that comes to mind is of too male dolphins engaging in homosexual relations by means of one of their blowholes.

Masturbation is another sexual activity that animals engage in with no reproductive value, they do this solely for the purpose of pleasure. The exhibit shows several pictures and videos in which animals are seen masturbating or using masturbatory aids to gain pleasure.

This exhibit also makes it a point to show that animals do engage in sex outside of procreation, and that there are many examples of sex with no reproductive value at all. One such example of this is same sex sexual relationships in the animal world. When people argue against homosexuals, they often say that there are no examples of homosexuality in the wild, when in reality there are. In fact, I learned from this exhibit that over 500 different animal species engage in homosexual sexual activity. From lions to the penguins is seems like all species seem to homosexuality present even though there is no reproductive value. Since it is present in wild, then how can it possibly go against nature? This exhibit raises this question and more, such as the complexity of sexual relationship between animals and what this could be used to say about human sexuality.

This exhibit will not be for everyone, for example, children should probably not go to see this because the sculptures are graphic and many of the terms may go over the child's head. I think that teenagers should be able to see this exhibit because it is very informative and they can learn a lot about things that are not in high school biology class. I know I did!

Ed is the kind of guy you call when your own life is just a little drab and you need some inspiration. It’s impossible to predict what he’ll say. I alway ask the same question: "Ed, what in the world are you doing?" and I’ve never gotten the same answer twice. The last three responses have gone something like this:

"I’m painting a 40 foot canvas of the universe. It’s really cool. I have an art barn now."

"I’m heading to a book signing party. Did you read the new book that I wrote inbetween teaching classes on celestial mathmatics?"

"Just saved  a space craft…"

Here’s the latest correspondence from Ed– this time he’s working on the Lunar X Prize (no surprise):

Hello Talia,

FYI – I am involved in a really cool Google Lunar X-Prize project – to land a small rover on the Moon, and have it crawl a number of feet, then send back a video of the Earth. Our project is called Lunar Trans. My role is to design a really low cost trajectory to reach the Moon and land on it. This transfer to the Moon is actually based on one I designed in 1990 to rescue a Japanese lunar mission and get the spacecraft Hiten there in 1991. It turns out to reduce the cost substantially to land on the Moon since it reduces the landing speed. Although it takes three months, instead of the classical three days, it uses about 15% less fuel to land. This means that you can reduce the mass of the spacecraft substantially, and use, as a result, a smaller launch vehicle from the Earth. This is where you can really save a lot of money. So, instead of perhaps spending say, 150 million dollars, we think we can reduce the cost in half.

This last week from February 6-9, I attended a meeting of our team in Denver, Colorado, and went to a small satellite company, Microsat, to discuss our mission concept. It was exciting to get together with a number of other engineers to discuss this concept. We feel that we have a winning plan – and time will tell. The person who leads our team, Michael Joyce, has another job of building and selling full size replicas of the robot in the TV show Lost in Space. I think that is very cool.

Ed

-Talia, Talking Science

It seems that prank callers are really upsetting the folks at the National UFO Reporting Center. Of course, if you’re a juvenile prank caller, this will probably just make you want to prank them more. In any case, I thought I would pass along the warning notice posted on their site and propose that anyone scheming to prank call the UFO Center use better manners. Please, be a polite pranker.

NOTICE TO HOAX CALLERS

In the near future, we will post a statement here regarding the deluge of hoaxed calls and reports that we have been receiving recently over our Hotline. The volume of telephone calls NUFORC receives from rude, impudent, unbelievably foul-mouthed, young Americans has grown to an unacceptable level. Just today, April 27, for example, we received more than 25 obscene calls from youth, who seem to have nothing better to do with their cell phones than to shout triple-X rated filth over our Hotline.

If this condition continues, we are going to implement a plan that will allow them to understand just how inconvenient it can be to receive a large volume of unwanted calls. Within the next several days, we will provide more details here as to what we have in store for them, and how visitors to our site can help put a stop to this inconvenience.

For two years, we have saved all of the obscene messages from, and all of the telephone numbers of, those who have made obscene calls to our Center, and we are about to implement a program, which we think will make them reconsider whether they want to continue their rude behavior. Our objective will be 1) to deny them use of their telephones, and 2) to identify and contact their parents, in order to play for them some of the filth and stupidity their children are inflicting on others. We think that we can achieve both of those objectives.

Please check back to our website, from time to time, and we will let you know what you might be able to do to help. In the meantime, if you are a parent whose child has a cell telephone, we strongly urge you to supervise the child, and to consider requiring him/her to keep a written record of all telephone calls that are sent and received over that telephone.

Just one more note regarding anyone who takes the last paragraph of this notice seriously: asking your child to keep a written record of his/her telephone calls is not going to work. Just check your telephone bill instead.

-Talia, Talking Science

And You Thought You Could Never Be Like Those Guys on CSI!

Have you ever watched an episode on CSI and wondered, "Just HOW do they identify always manage to identify and catch the criminals using DNA?"

Well, that question as well as the method for using DNA in criminal investigations will be answered today! You’ll be working in an exciting career in criminal investigation before you know it!

Well, maybe not, but you’ll definitely learn how all those big time scientists identify suspects in criminal investigations.

To start off, you must first know what exactly DNA is. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It is the fundamental thing that determines whether we are human, male, female, or anything that makes us who we are. Your DNA determines what you look like, or whether or not you look more like your mother or your father. DNA profiling can be used both in real life circumstances when trying to determine to paternity or maternity of a parent to a child, and in some cases it can be used to differentiate between suspects in a criminal investigation.

Although human DNA is basically the same, they are small difference in each and every person that separates us from being the carbon copy of a complete stranger. It is these differences in DNA that scientists manipulate in order to either exonerate or convict a suspect of a crime. In these cases, scientists use the method of DNA profiling in order to determine whether or not a suspect committed a crime. DNA profiling is the process of testing to identify DNA or types. In forensic investigation, it can be used to indicate parentage, if a child belongs to a parent, or to even convict or exonerate suspects in certain investigations.

So, now that the basics are out of the way, we can get on to the DNA profiling 101!

Now, DNA fingerprinting is the technique used to develop to distinguish between different people of the same species using samples of their DNA. Where can scientists obtain this DNA? Well, DNA is present in every fiber of our being.

All bodily fluids contain like saliva, blood, and semen contains DNA and scientists use these factors in order to do DNA profiling. In DNA profiling, scientists use highly variable repeat sequences in DNA called VNTRs, which stands for variable number tandem repeats. Now, in English this is simply a location in our genes where nucleotides (parts of DNA) repeat. The repeating VNTRs vary in length, and each variant acts as an inherited trait. These variations in length show differences in different individuals.

If these VNTRs are variable enough, then it can be determined that the individuals being compared are unlikely to share common traits, and therefore prove which one of them committed the crime or action. Let’s use this scenario as an example:

A young woman is raped, and the investigators find semen samples on the young woman’s clothes. If there are two suspects in the case, then how do we find out who is the perpetrator?

Well, when using DNA profiling, scientists usually use restriction enzymes to cut the DNA at certain places in the DNA sequence. Depending on the VNTRs in a suspect’s DNA, the enzymes will cut in different places. The process is actually quite long and laborious, but put simply, if the cuts found in the DNA match the cuts found on the evidence, than most likely the suspect committed the crime. Using this method, one suspect will be convicted, and the other sent home.

I hope this helped you all to better understand what those CSI people are talking about!

Mendelian Genetics are a lie!

Do you remember sitting in a Freshman Living Environment class in high school and learning of Mendelian genetics?

At that time, we students learned that Mendel’s theory is fact when in reality it’s really not. For those of you who are not quite as familiar with the subject matter, a man genetics by the name of Gregor Mendel created Mendelian. Mendel was a monk who discovered the secrets of inheritance by observing and breeding pea plants.

He came up with Mendelian genetics, which basically states that organisms inherit traits that are either dominant or recessive.

The dominant traits are always expressed, while the recessive traits are only expressed when paired with another recessive allele. Parents donate either a dominant or recessive allele to their offspring. There can be multiple alleles for one specific trait.

Now, as I stated earlier, genetics are not quite as simple as this. There are other ways of inheriting certain traits.

What Mendel didn’t know was that certain traits could actually blend together, for example, when it comes to the color of a flower, sometimes the dominant and recessive allele will blend together when they are paired with each other. This is called Incomplete Dominance.

There are also several other types of inheritance that Mendel was not able to account for simply because he only dealt with Pea plants and because the technology at the time did not allow for much in-depth analysis on genetics.

So, what can we conclude from this? Our 9th grade living environment teachers have lied to us!

In reality, Mendelian genetics only work for a select group of traits! Traits such as being able to roll one’s tongue, having mid digit hair, and having a cow lick, are all examples of Mendelian genetics. But this is only a minuscule part of actual genetics.

The occurrence of linked genes also shows that Mendel was not 100% correct in his theory.

To Mendel, traits were expressed based on probability of certain alleles occurring with each other. This probability is usually random, but we can predict which alleles will be expressed with other alleles by using a punnett square. However, in reality you cannot actually predict the exact number of which alleles are expressed because of linked genes. Linked genes are genes that are inherited together because they are located on the same chromosome.

Because of linked genes, red heads are usually born with freckles, and blonds are usually born with blue eyes because the genes are located on the same chromosome.

So, what can we learn from all of this?

Don’t believe your 9th grade biology teachers, kids! You’ll only find out that you’re being lied to as you continue your education!

-Katrina Boston, Science Friday/Talking Science Intern

The Future of Medicial Treatment may rest in your brain!

Believe it or not, but the future of medicine may not just be in taking a few pills to cure a sickness. Recently, scientist have discovered that your brain may hold to key to recovering from illness. In several studies conducted, scientists have discovered that people tend to get better when taking a "drug" that they think will make them better.

The thing is - they’re not really taking a drug.

Placebos are actually fake drugs that are used to make people believe that the drug will cure them. In many cases, by simply thinking they will be cured of a certain aliment - the patients cure themselves. The placebos themselves are usually either sugar pills of salt pills, but they really could be made of anything under the sun.

Today, placebos are used in almost every clinical study, and they are marred within controversy. While some people believe the placebo effect to a true concept, there are many others that have conducted research that proves otherwise. In May of 2001, a group of researchers from the University of Copenhagen conducted an experiment in which they attempted to measure the effectiveness of the placebo effect. The researchers noticed that the participants in the group who were not given any treatment healed at relatively the same rates as the patients who were given the placebo treatment. They did, however, find that the placebos worked well in it came to pain relief.

With all of these arguments against it, could the placebo effect truly be real? Up until now, there has not been a decent explanation for how positive expectations translate to pain relief or an alleviation of symptoms. A man named Tor Wager and his research team has recently made a breakthrough at Columbia University. To test out the placebo effect, he and his group of researches gathered participants and then separated them accordingly for the experiment. On all groups, he applied a hot stimulus (sometimes painfully hot,) to the forearms of all of the participants.  He informed some of the participants that the placebo cream to be applied was a pain reliever, while he told others that the cream did nothing to relieve pain.

Then, using a positron emission tomography, or a PET scan, Wager and his team measured the brain activity of all of the participants. It was then that Wager noticed that the brains of all of the people in the placebo group released high levels of opioids, a natural painkiller, proving the placebo effect to be true.

What does this mean for the medical world? Details are still sketchy, but as more and more research is conducted on the placebo effect, psychology just may be science used to cure a person’s aliments. Who knows, before you know it, we may just be curing ourselves with our minds!

- Katrina Boston, intern at Science Friday/Talking Science.